


third time's the charm

by stilinski



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Misunderstandings, POV Stiles, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-12 14:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7938808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilinski/pseuds/stilinski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>  Sure, Stiles has a mark on his chest that belies the depth of his feelings, but it's not something anyone can see unless he decides to show it, or unless werewolves suddenly have x-ray vision.</p><p>  Which—worrying. And probably-definitely-likely a possibility – if it was to manifest anywhere, Beacon Hills would be top of the list.</p><p>  Stiles almost turns around there and then to ask Scott how his visual acuity is but is stopped by the teenager at the register finally looking up long enough to spot Derek. Stiles watches her mouth fall open and her expression—studiously blank but with a faint flush rising in her cheeks—is one Stiles knows far too well, particularly when faced with Derek in all his snug-fitting-jeans, v-neck-wearing, canvas-jacketed glory.</p><p>  Stiles is pretty sure he <em>invented</em> that expression.</p>
            </blockquote>





	third time's the charm

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by/based on [this](http://obroech.tumblr.com/post/133654675499). I sat down at my laptop this morning and wrote it. It's a silly, angsty, fuzzy little thing of a thing.
> 
> For this reason, there are probably mistakes and weird words where weird words ought not to be, but I'm impatient and bored and I had fun writing this.
> 
> Quick note: I don't think "soul marks" is really the correct term for what's in here, and I hesitate to call them tattoos, but "love marks" sounds corny and like a terrible euphemism so, soul marks it is! Should be fairly self explanatory when you're reading it, but sometimes I go for self-explanatory and end up with vague so cliff notes: everyone's born with a unique "mark" on their ankle; each time a person falls in love, the mark of the person they love appears somewhere on their body. Marks can fade if the person then falls out of love but never disappear; they become scar-like if the person they love(d) dies.
> 
> One day, I'll write a brief author's note.
> 
> One day.
> 
> *
> 
> **Additionally: I do not give my consent for my work to be shared on GoodReads, or any other site with a similar objective. Ever. No exceptions.**

While hunting for an old recipe book of his mother's, Stiles comes across an album of old photographs. Officially sidetracked, he lowers himself to sit on the dusty attic floor with a soft thump, opening the album across his folded legs.

  The first is a picture of him and his parents, young and laughing – Stiles is barely more than a bundle of green swaddling, but he's there all the same – his mother's handwriting confirms it on the label underneath.

  The half dozen or so photos that follow are of a happy, chubby toddler with Stiles' dark eyes and he flips through them with relative disinterest, only pausing for the photos with someone other than him in it, whether it be a picture of his mother and father, or of him and his grandmother.

  A few pages in, he pauses. Two little boys of five years wearing makeshift capes and sitting in a sandbox – their faces are smeared with sand and sunscreen, chests bare and clear. Scott looks wary but tentatively happy - the whole reason he'd been dumped at the Stilinski's is Melissa remembered them from kindergarten and Scott's parents had been fighting again - whereas Stiles' grin is taking up most of his face.

  There's a photo of them both at eight a little after that, on vacation to Scott's grandparents' – they have their arms around each other and are once more slathered in sand and sunscreen, though there are no capes this time around. There's a dark smudge on Stiles' ribs in this photo, one he knows too well, while Scott's skin is still bare.

  It was the summer Stiles stopped taking his shirt off around other people; it was the summer he shaved all his hair off and the summer before he spent the whole of the following autumn haunting hospital wards and corridors.

  Stiles traces a fingertip over the laughing, carefree boy in the photo and wishes he could wonder what had happened to him.

  Feeling the desire for his mother's scones (the whole reason he'd even clambered into the attic) flood from him, Stiles tucks the album under his arm and heads over to the ladder, barely pausing long enough to close the attic up before retreating to his room. He dumps the album on his desk and sinks down onto his bed.

  He jumps back to his feet a scant moment later, biting his lip, and heads down the hall to the bathroom to look at himself in the mirror.

  Almost twenty, now, and there's barely a trace of the boy in those photos. Anxiously, he tugs his t-shirt up and over his head to stare at the mark on his ribs. There's one under his arm, now, too, having collected it in the third grade when Lydia Martin strode into his life and his heart all at once.

  He never held the lack of reciprocation against Scott, not really. By the time Stiles had really understood what the little howling wolf on his torso meant, his feelings – at least in " _that way_ " – had faded and been replaced by the agony of the loss of a parent. Scott had been there through it all, but Stiles, for a while, felt like he'd lost all capacity for love, felt like it'd been ripped out of him and placed in the ground with his mother.

  Scott, to his eternal credit, had never made a big deal of it, even when it would have gotten him in with the cool kids at school to do so.

  At nine, the rose on his inner bicep had bloomed the day after Lydia had flipped her hair in his face after he'd passed her his entire pack of colouring pencils and not just the purple one she'd asked for.

  Jackson had seen the mark the day after that, and Stiles had started wearing long sleeved t-shirts, point blank refusing to wear anything that didn't cover both marks. His father, desperate to keep the peace after they'd been lost in grief for so long, hadn't argued.

  Stiles stares at the marks, twisting his arm to look at Lydia's rose, faded but still there in the same way as Scott's wolf is. He'd wondered for the longest time if there was something wrong with him, if there was a reason he collected marks when the people they belonged to didn't.

  He'd watched Scott collect his first mark - two crossed arrows on his chest to match the ones on Allison's ankle; he'd seen Scott's wolf peering over the neckline of Allison's t-shirts.

  Stiles heard enough of the school gossip to know that a key had appeared along Lydia's collarbone a few months later; that a rose had etched itself upon Jackson's, and then had seen it confirmed when Lydia confronted the Jackson as the kanima.

  He'd spotted both a wolf and crossed arrows on Isaac's arm and been witness to Scott's bafflement when Isaac's shield appeared on his own arm, neatly paired with Allison's warm little smile at the same thing on hers.

  Stiles had waited and watched and wondered, and found himself distanced from his closest friends. The rose under his arm had begun to fade when Lydia had begun to treat him like a human being; when he'd started seeing her as one.

  The marks on Scott's body faded a little when Kira arrived, when Scott and Allison had called it quits ostensibly for good and Isaac had followed Allison. Stiles had felt such hope and guilt that he almost choked on it when Scott called him in a panic about the little fox on his thigh.

  Stiles had raced over just to discover the fox was in the wrong position for it to be his, the wrong colour, the wrong everything.

  Then the nogitsune had happened and Stiles' ruminations over the marks had taken a back seat. Truth be told, they became another chink in his armour, another tool the nogitsune had wielded in order to shove Stiles to the back of his own mind.

  In the chaos and recovery that followed, the crossed arrows over Scott's heart scarred over with Allison's death, and Isaac's shield on his arm faded some more after he left for France. Stiles threw himself into research instead of thinking about the marks, threw himself into not being caught unawares again.

  The nogitsune had messed him up in more ways than that. The dashing fox he'd adored as a child had become an ugly reminder, and that's when he'd started covering it up. In a moment of weakness, he'd gone to Deaton to ask if the fox meant he'd been suited to the nogitsune because of more than just the proverbial darkness brought on by his sacrifice. Deaton had responded in his usual warm, cryptic way, that no sign – no _mark_ – was inherently good or bad, but what the marked chose to make of it.

  It hadn't made him feel better, but it hadn't made him feel worse, either.

  They'd returned from Mexico without Derek and Braeden. Scott had rolled over the morning after they crashed out at Stiles', still gritty and exhausted from the road, and pointed at Stiles' chest, where the neck of his t-shirt had pulled down, the material twisted around Stiles' body as he slept.

  "What's that?" Scott had asked, muzzily, and then promptly rolled over and gone back to sleep.

  Stiles looks at himself in the mirror and traces his fingertips over the wolf, the newer one, sprawled over his heart.

  He'd done the same thing that morning, stepping over Scott to get to the bathroom. He'd known, even then, who this wolf belonged to, even though he'd never seen it on its owner – Derek's penchant for shirtlessness had never seemingly extended to the rest of his clothing.

  Stiles had stopped looking in mirrors, then, other than to shave and brush his teeth. He'd stopped wearing anything in a light colour that could possibly be seen through – Derek's mark's darker than Scott's ever was, and shows no sign of fading.

  Once he'd woken up properly, Scott made no mention of the new mark, and Stiles never told him.

  After that, Stiles had begun looking for ways to remove the marks. He'd managed to track down a couple of – very expensive – options and had started beginning to save up when Scott and Lydia had caught him. Their pinched, worried expressions had guilt rising like bile in Stiles' throat and they'd spoken nothing more of it: Stiles deleted the bookmarks on his laptop and then the dread doctors had turned up and everything went to hell in a handbasket all over again.

  And try as he might, Stiles' skin never bore any hint of Malia's coyote paw print. When she'd caught him trying to look, she'd matter-of-factly told him she had no new marks on her skin. That had been equally relieving and disappointing. She also never made any mention of the wolf on Stiles' skin that hadn't been there when they'd started dating.

  Stiles pulls his shirt back on and turns away from his reflection, fighting the tide of hopelessness churning in his gut as he grabs the photo album and goes to curl up on his bed.

  There's a photo on the page after the one of him and Scott of his own mark, close up – the running fox spreading halfway around his ankle – followed by a snap of his mother's sailing ship and his father's bear.

  He takes the three photos out of their wallets and slides the album onto the floor. Sitting up again, Stiles tugs the leg of his jeans up and shoves his sock down, peeling away the large bandaid he keeps plastered around his ankle semi-permanently. The mark's identical to the one in the photograph taken almost a decade ago, having grown with him. He frowns at it and, not for the first time, wishes it away. He slaps the bandaid back down and pulls his clothes back into place, crawling under his comforter for good measure.

  It's barely seven in the evening, but Stiles rolls over and shoves his head into his pillow, hoping for sleep to come and take his mind off things for a little while at least.

Scott tumbles through Stiles' bedroom window a few hours later and is encircled within mountain ash before Stiles is even completely awake, groggily hanging out of bed with one arm extended. Scott freezes, eyes wide.

  Once the brain fog clears and Stiles recognises him, he wills the ash back into the bottle at his bedside and sits up.

  Scott's face breaks into a grin. "So awesome," he says, inviting himself to flop down onto Stiles' desk chair. The smile dims slightly as he stares at Stiles. "Dude, it's like nine thirty – why are you in bed?"

  "Wasn't feeling great," Stiles says, and it's not a lie, technically. "And I didn't have anything else to do."

  "Well, now you do," Scott says. "Movies and pizza at my place – you weren't answering your phone so Kira's ordering while I come get you. Lydia and Malia are there already."

  Stiles doesn't put up a protest, though he's not sure he's up to facing being the fifth wheel on what was almost definitely a double date night – he'd spied a suspiciously paw print-like mark on Lydia's wrist just last week when they'd all met, home from their first year of college.

  He grabs his keys from his desk and looks at Scott, reaching over to pluck a leaf out of his hair. "How about we take the car? We can go pick up the pizza."

  Scott grins at him again and goes to close the window, like all considerate would-be burglars should. It's taken years for Stiles to train him to do that and he can't help the fond smile that spreads over his face at the sight, spirits lifting.

*

By the time they reach the pizza place Kira ordered from, Scott's managed to drag him out of his funk, having turned on the portable radio – the Jeep's had given up years ago – and sung along to every song, regardless of whether he knew the words, in an atrocious falsetto until Stiles had threatened to make him walk, grinning.

  "So, what's the real reason I'm invited to date night?" Stiles asks as they push open the door and Scott greets the teenager behind the counter with his name.

  Scott doesn't insult him by even trying to deny it. "You're the deciding vote," he says. "Lydia and Kira want to watch Pride and Prejudice; Malia and I want to watch Ex Machina. I mean, Malia did point out that inviting your input also risks the option of ten more movies being thrown into the mix, but it's not like any of us are busy right now anyway, right? We could totally just live off pizza and watch movies the whole summer."

  "I'm not feeling the romantic drama," Stiles says. "Particularly not if I have to watch it with you four. Way too many hormones in way too small a space."

  Scott's expression is triumphant and he whips out his phone. Halfway through tapping out an enthusiastic message, he halts and reels around to stare at the door, frowning. Stiles wants to cry. They've had two glorious weeks of all being quiet of the preternatural front. He grips the baggie of mountain ash in his pocket, pivoting to put his back against the wall.

  Derek Hale walks in a moment later and Stiles isn't sure how to react. Something in the back of his mind wants to throw the mountain ash anyway but he manages to rein in the impulse just in time.

  A brief glance at his face tells Stiles that Derek's not at all surprised to see them there and he supposes that's not much of a shock – he probably heard them before he'd even parked his car.

  "Derek, hey!" Scott says while Stiles gingerly extricates his hand from his pocket and turns to the counter, drumming his fingertips on it and wondering if staring at the staff will magically make the pizzas appear. He keeps a tight hold on his emotions, focusing on projecting an air of casual boredom, deliberately tuning out of the conversation Derek and Scott are having.

  It's not as though Derek had any reason to tell him he was back in town or anything, so Stiles has no right to feel the slight umbrage he wants to. They've been through a few harrowing, life-or-death experiences together, but so what? They were never bosom buddies or anything. It's fine. Stiles is fine. So Derek's back in town – it seems like he didn't even tell Scott, so why would anyone tell Stiles?

  Sure, Stiles has a mark on his chest that belies the depth of his feelings, but it's not something anyone can see unless he decides to show it, or unless werewolves suddenly have x-ray vision.

  Which—worrying. And probably-definitely-likely a possibility – if it was to manifest anywhere, Beacon Hills would be top of the list.

  Stiles almost turns around there and then to ask Scott how his visual acuity is but is stopped by the teenager at the register finally looking up long enough to spot Derek. Stiles watches her mouth fall open and her expression—studiously blank but with a faint flush rising in her cheeks—is one Stiles knows far too well, particularly when faced with Derek in all his snug-fitting-jeans, v-neck-wearing, canvas-jacketed glory.

  Stiles is pretty sure he _invented_ that expression.

  "You should add your order onto ours," Scott says, loud enough that Stiles is forced to tune back into the conversation. "Come over – we're all having a movie night."

  There's a pause and Stiles can feel the hair on the back of his neck rising, can physically _feel_ Derek looking at him. He doesn't look around, isn't sure whether it'd be better for Derek to join them or leave. He's not sure he could handle spending several hours in Derek's presence, not with his body having betrayed him by adding yet another unrequited mark, not with the knowledge of how he feels with no plausible way of denying it.

  At the same time, Stiles wants to turn around and beg Derek to join them, wants to be in his proximity for a little while, wants to exist in the same room as him so that he can pretend, even just for the evening, that he's not doomed to collect the marks of everyone he knows without ever seeing his own mark on anyone else's skin.

  Derek must sense his discomfort because after that pregnant pause, he declines Scott's offer and leaves without ordering anything. Stiles wants to feel relieved, but all he feels is guilt and loneliness.

  "That was weird," Scott remarks just as their pizzas are stacked atop the counter. "Hey, are you okay?"

  "Fine," Stiles says, accepting the boxes while Scott pays. "I think I'm just gonna go home, Scotty – I'm still not feeling great and—"

  "I'll make my mom's chicken soup," Scott says, herding him from the building and back across the parking lot. "And you have to drop me off at my place, now, anyway. Come on, Stiles – we've barely seen each other all year because of college. Come hang out – if you still feel crappy after the first movie, I'll drive you home or you can crash in my room."

  Scott gently wheedles all the way to the McCall residence and by the time he's parked in the drive, he's given in – Scott's offered to kick everyone out so it can just be the two of them; offered to dismantle and re-build his bed in the living room if the couch isn't comfy; offered to call his mom home from work; he even offered to let Stiles put Star Wars on.

  They end up demolishing the pizzas and watching – and commentating on – three movies before Stiles looks up to find Malia sprawled across Lydia on the floor, fast asleep, and Kira curled up on the armchair Scott's using as a back rest. Scott's eyes slide open, reflecting the DVD menu, when Stiles stands from the couch.

  "I'm gonna go," Stiles whispers. "Thanks for this."

  Scott smiles. "Any time," he says. "Call me tomorrow."

  Stiles pats his shoulder in acknowledgement and makes his way out.

*

Stiles' senses are on high alert as soon as he steps into the house. There's nothing immediately obvious, but something has his instincts reaching for the mountain ash in his pocket and snatching up the aluminium bat from the umbrella stand by the door.

  He reaches the kitchen to find two mugs, one full and one half empty. The empty one is also in the crook of an elbow. Derek's elbow. Because Derek is slumped at his kitchen table, head resting on his crossed arms, asleep.

  For the second time that night, Stiles has to consciously take his hand out of his pocket despite the wicked little voice in his head telling him to use it, to keep Derek with him forever.

  Shaking that vaguely nauseating thought away, Stiles prods him with the end of the bat, standing as far back as he can.

  Rather than jumping up and attacking, Derek wakes with a soft sound and lifts his head slowly, blinking muzzily.

  "Don't you have a bed?" Stiles asks, for lack of anything else to say. He's looking at Derek but refusing to really acknowledge him because he doesn't really want to get caught up in _looking_ at him because if he does, he'll be rendered incoherent.

  "Got one," Derek agrees, then frowns down at his mug. He looks like he's ready to put his head back down and go back to sleep, so Stiles steps closer to gain his attention. "I came over to talk to you – you were fine until I turned up, earlier, and I wanted to ask you without an audience."

  "I'm fine – I was fine," Stiles says. He realises he's still holding onto the bat, but putting it down at this stage would be odd, so he holds onto it and stays stock still in the hopes Derek won't notice.

  "You were being weird."

  "I'm not the one who drove all the way to a pizza place, stood for like, ten minutes, then left without ordering anything, dude."

  "You didn't say a word to me."

  "You didn't say anything to me, either," Stiles says, irked. "I just didn't know you were back, man, it's no big thing, or whatever."

  "There was a time I'd have probably given my left arm to get you not to talk to me," Derek says, a faint smirk appearing on his face. "In fact, I almost did, but not—not since the nogitsune. Not since you actually stopped talking."

  Stiles isn't sure how to respond to that, so he doesn't. Accidentally, he meets Derek's eyes and loses track of the world around them just a little bit before he can catch himself. Some expression must cross his face because Derek frowns.

  "I don't understand what I did," he says.

  "You caught me off guard," Stiles says, not a little defensively. "That's all. I'm fine, I told you, this isn't a big thing; I was just surprised."

  "Stiles, you could wake up tomorrow to find a velociraptor in your back yard and you wouldn't be surprised," Derek says, and then snorts. "Hell, you probably have a _plan_ for that, in the event it happens. How come me coming home is surprising?"

  "You didn't tell me," Stiles says with a shrug. "Didn't even tell Scott, or anyone, as far as I know. Velociraptors, I can plan for. You..."

  He cuts himself off with a shake of his head before his voice can fail him, before he gives himself away more than he already has.

  Derek stares at him some more and just as Stiles is beginning to feel prickly, he sighs. "I thought I hid it well enough," he says. "I didn't—if I'd known for sure, I'd have been more careful. I didn't think anyone knew. I definitely didn't think it'd make you unable to stand being in the same room as me."

  It's Stiles' turn to stare, because he's pretty sure he's missing at least half of the details, here.

  Before he can question it, Derek's standing from the table and placing something flat and rectangular beside his mug. He looks sad but resigned as he traces it reverently.

  Derek glances at him and offers a feeble smile. "I found it in your room – I wasn't trying to pry; it was just sitting there – I was going to wait for you upstairs but then I needed coffee, because it made sense once I knew. I didn't know you knew. I'd apologise, but I can't help it."

  Derek brushes past him to get to the hall and Stiles might as well be on Mars for all he feels like part of the conversation Derek clearly thinks he's having with him.

  Instead, he steps closer to the table to look at what Derek placed there and his entire world shakes apart, because it's the photograph of his – of _Stiles'_ – mark; the one he'd left sitting on his bed when Scott had come to collect him.

  Spinning around, Stiles runs straight into Derek and has to stagger back a step to keep his balance. "Wow, I thought you left," he says, because he's an idiot and something suspiciously like hope is making his thoughts feel all glowy.

  "You blocked me in," Derek says, and he actually looks apologetic about it, like Stiles parking in the drive was somehow Derek's fault.

  In hindsight, Stiles probably should have noticed the car in the drive. He's going to blame the bone-deep exhaustion he was feeling at the time and leave it at that.

  Rather than incriminate himself with clumsy words, Stiles grabs the neck of Derek's shirt and drags it to one side.

  Derek's hands come up automatically to steady him when Stiles wavers, clinging to Derek's clothing like his life depends on it, because it suddenly feels a lot like it does.

  A fox.

  There's a running fox on Derek's chest.

  Dimly, there's the sound of hollow metal hitting the kitchen tiles, but Stiles doesn't care.

  Stiles' fox.

  Derek's chest.

  Stiles can't breathe. Breathing doesn't seem so vital anymore. All of his faculties are suddenly dedicated to staring at Derek's skin, at his shaking fingers tracing the outline; he can't even bring himself to freak out that he's running his hand over Derek's bare skin.

  "Stiles?" Derek asks, minutes or hours or days later.

  Stiles doesn't trust his voice, can't find the right words to explain the maelstrom of emotions in his chest because Derek _loves_ him. Derek's in love with him, and Stiles didn't even know, but Derek thinks he knew and is sad and resigned to not being with Stiles because he thinks Stiles doesn't love him back.

  He refuses to release Derek's shirt, fearing that if he does, Derek will leave, and he doesn't want that. Stiles can't think of anything he wants less than for Derek to leave.

  Perhaps it's that thought that makes him able to pull his unclenched hand away from Derek's chest long enough to drag his own collar down, makes him able to look up at Derek's face for a reaction.

  Derek stares, a mirror of Stiles' own initial incomprehension, before he's reaching to tug Stiles' t-shirt aside himself. Slowly, the glowy hope in Stiles' chest expands to show on Derek's face, a cautious smile slipping onto Derek's face to reflect the probably-creepy-crazed one on Stiles'.

  Stiles doesn't know who moves first but Derek's hand spreads over his mark and sends warmth flooding through him while they kiss, frantic and shy, tentative and relieved.

  Derek's mouth is ever so slightly sleep-and-coffee stale, but Stiles probably tastes overwhelmingly of garlic, and besides that, he can't bring himself to care overmuch, not when Derek's hand grasps his hip to pull him closer, not when he's making quiet noises in his throat while Stiles drags a hand through his hair.

  They kiss until Stiles is dizzy, until exhaustion catches up with him even if it doesn't dim the elation buzzing in every fibre of his body.

  "Go to bed," Derek murmurs, voice a little raspy. He smiles when Stiles protests. "I'll be up in a minute – gonna clean up."

  "Tomorrow," Stiles says, because this could be a dream. He's had dreams more wonderful and cruel than this and he's not ready to wake up yet.

  Derek finds his hands and brings them up to eye level and it takes a moment for Stiles to realise there are ten. Twenty, including Derek's, curled around his wrists.

  "Bed," Derek says. "I'll be right there."

  Stiles steps away but doesn't go far, watching Derek move around the kitchen, cleaning up the mugs. He pauses by the table to pick up the photograph. With a glance at Stiles, he tucks it into the pocket of the jacket hanging over the chair he'd been sitting at. Stiles' giddiness carries him up the stairs.

  Impulse has him changing into pyjama pants and neglecting to put on a shirt as he climbs into bed, the cool sheets a kind of alien feeling against his bare skin. He forgets the strangeness of it as soon as Derek's in his room and closing the door behind him.

  Somehow, it's not weird that Derek's wriggling out of his t-shirt and jeans in his childhood bedroom; somehow it's not weird that Derek's climbing into his bed and shifting around to lie on his side so they can face one another; somehow it's not weird that Derek reaches out to touch his chest, that he leans in close enough to kiss the mark there.

  It's not weird, which is the weirdest, and best, part.

  Although nothing more racy than a few drawn-out kisses occurs between them, Stiles' fingers find two spots of scar tissue in the dark – one on Derek's waist, which he whispers is a flame, and one on his wrist, a bass clef.

  Anger and protectiveness and horrible, horrible sadness on Derek's behalf well up in Stiles' chest as he traces the flame and Derek has to distract him with a series of gentle kisses, smiling against his mouth and promising that it's okay, now, that he's gone a long way towards stopping blaming himself for it, that he realises, now, that loving a bad person hasn't meant he has to be bad, too.

  Stiles thinks of the nogitsune and for the first time, with Derek's words in mind, doesn't feel mind-numbing fear, not even when Derek's hand traces down to his ankle to peel away the bandaid and toss it somewhere into the darkness behind him.

  Stiles allows himself to begin to feel safe for the first time since he was eight years old. When they drift closer and move so Derek's chest fits against Stiles' back, Stiles allows Derek's arm sliding around his waist to make him feel anchored instead of restricted.

  Derek's other arm sneaks under him in a way that should be uncomfortable, but his hand fits over the mark on Stiles' chest and other than moving to cover it with his own, Stiles is far too tired and content to do anything other than fall asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [Tumblr](http://obroech.tumblr.com/)! Come say hi!


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